Frustrations

I suspect I've long since passed the point of being tiresome about Loud Car Guy, but yup, this is another one of Those entries. Feel free to skip it.

He parked outside my window again last night. (After I went out for the evening. I found his car there at 2 a.m. when I came home.) I spoke to Apartment Manager Guy this morning; he said he would deal with it. Tonight, of course, Loud Car Guy is parked there again, and Apartment Manager Guy isn't answering his cell phone.

I realized this morning what Apartment Manager Guy's basic problem is: he seems to be (a) very inflexible, and (b) incapable of planning ahead. See, it turns out that the space Loud Car Guy is supposed to be parking in (and has been parking in for most of the past couple weeks, to the point that yesterday morning I actually thought this stuff was working out okay), space #7, was only available because apartment #7 was vacant. Now somebody has moved into apartment #7, and the apartment managers have an absolutely strict policy that no parking-space numbers can be changed and nobody can park in a space that belongs to another apartment. (Luckily for Loud Car Guy, and very unluckily for me, one of the "first come, first served" unnumbered spaces happens to be right outside my window; that's the one he's been parking in.) So parking space #7 is no longer vacant. Did it occur to Apartment Manager Guy that the problem of where Loud Car Guy is supposed to park would be reopened the moment someone moved into space #7? It did not. Did anyone mention this change in status to me, to warn me or work out a compromise with me? They did not. Is it possible to assign the new person to a different space? It is not.

Okay, I asked, so if your must-park-in-your-own-spot policy is so strict, why did Loud Car Guy say you'd given him written permission to park in space #3 for several months, while that apartment was vacant? Apartment Manager Guy responds: we didn't.

So the biggest problem I'm facing here is unreliable information. I can't get anyone to give me good information. Everything someone tells me is likely to turn out to have been false (I'm kinda skeptical about whether Apartment Manager Guy has ever acted in any way on my complaints), but most of the time they just don't bother to tell me anything. No returning phone calls, no responses to email (as promised this morning), nothing. And I can't make good decisions without good information.

I'm looking into condos. Meanwhile, I'm sleeping in the living room.

Oh, and if you ever get an opportunity to rent an apartment from a company called B__s Management (that first word is the plural of a small stinging insect, modified to reduce the likelihood of search engines locating this entry), I recommend against it. The rent is low, and it's often nice that the apartment managers aren't always hanging around and interfering in my life (and they haven't done anything as overtly aggressive as Heather's landlady's honeysuckle massacre), but great communicators they ain't.

Maybe I should hang around the complex during the day and, when the apartment managers bring someone in to look at one of the vacant apartments, take that opportunity to ask them some tough questions.

My other cute idea this morning was to buy a really cheap non-operational motorcycle and park it in the first-come first-served space.

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2 Comments

Hey Jed, I have an 1985 Olds that you're welcome to park in that space for awhile! The only problem is that, while it runs, I was told NOT to take it on the highway (there's a lot wrong with it), so you'd have to pay to have it towed down there, which probably isn't worth your while.

I probably should just try to sell it for parts soon or donate it; I've been doing nothing more with it than driving it from one side of the street to the other (for street sweeping days) for months. Still, the idea of that car being useful for something again tickles me.

I'm also wondering if I can use the honeysuckle massacre as leverage for getting permission to have a kitten. Doubt it would work, and do I really want to trust my landlady not to kill my kitten?